There was a lot of talk about traditional Labour values during the party’s Scottish leadership debate last week. They have been lost, forgotten or communicated ineffectively, according to the three candidates vying to fill Wendy Alexander’s kitten heels.

If they agree about anything, Cathy Jamieson, Andy Kerr and Iain Gray are resolved to “reclaim” these values and “reconnect with the Scottish people” — whether we like it or not.

It’s not just Labour values, lost or otherwise, that unite the candidates. Watching the three potential leaders “debate” on Newsnight Scotland last week was a bit like attending a blind tasting for different brands of cold porridge. It was almost impossible to distinguish one from the other — every spoonful was equally bland and unpalatable. Thank goodness for Gordon Brewer breaking through the verbal gunge. His outrageous rudeness was the only thing that kept you awake.

This is an observation on the content of the candidates’ platforms, rather than personal characteristics. Personality was rarely allowed to shine anyway — though Cathy Jamieson can take comfort in disproving Jonathan Watson’s spoof. The television comic impersonates her as a wifie rushing home from the shops to make her man’s tea. The caricature is hilarious but unfair. Jamieson is surprisingly poised and authoritative, at least compared with her male opponents. Not once did she pull a poly bag from under the table to show off the great wee top she’d just picked up at Primark. This was disappointing — it would at least have livened up proceedings.

Gray, tagged “the government’s man”, has the looks of a fading chatshow host but, sadly, no racy stories to go with them. He has the irritating smugness of Scotland’s public sector elite who believe themselves on the side of the angels even when they do the devil’s work.

He knows what’s good for the country and if people complain, well, they just don’t get it, being less well-versed in these matters than he. Gray moved seamlessly from the voluntary sector, to parliament, to political advising when he lost his Holyrood seat. He was tagged as the most intelligent and thoughtful of the three at the beginning of the campaign. That assessment has been in doubt since he was fileted publicly by Brewer, who challenged him to produce an original policy. Never mistake middle class complacency for brains.

Kerr is supposed to be the man who will stand up to London, give the party a distinctive Scottish identity and even a measure of autonomy. But if he is an attack dog, he’s a west highland terrier — lots of yapping signifying nothing. Kerr professess great sympathy for families struggling to heat their homes. He has supported a windfall tax on energy companies to cut the bills of those hardest hit. But during the Newsnight debate last week, Kerr refused to condemn Gordon Brown’s apparent refusal to levy such a charge on the utility giants and help the poor reduce their bills.

It has been disclosed that the “big six” energy suppliers increased their shareholder dividend payouts by 19% last year. They distributed £1.64bn in dividends in 2007, £257m more than the year before. If Kerr cannot condemn Brown’s failure to stick up for “traditional Labour values” in this area, when will he speak out as Scottish parliamentary leader?

But this westie was by no means alone in his empty yapping. All three candidates have supported a windfall tax and all three refused to follow the lead of backbench Labour MPs who condemned Brown’s failure.

Jamieson, bizarrely, thought it was the SNP’s fault, even though energy policy is reserved to Westminster. She thought the Scottish government should be helping with people’s heating bills, presumably from the block grant. Yet none of them agreed it would be much easier if energy was in fact devolved, or if Scotland had a share of oil tax revenue.

Jamieson preferred to leave this matter to the Calman Commission — there’s leadership for you. Kerr gruffly dismissed it. Gray patronised. Such a suggestion was, he said, “ridiculous” because we are already getting a share of oil revenues. I guess we are all just too stupid to notice.

At least Gray was honest about Trident. He said he was a unilateralist and backed renewal of the weapons system to provide a deterrent until we hopefully no longer needed one. Looking firmly left, or at least to the votes of the left, Jamieson and Kerr paraded their anti-nuclear credentials . . . then refused to criticise a central govenment position that is so at odds with their heartfelt principles.

Further proving it’s what you say, not what you do that counts, they all yapped noisely in support of striking council workers. But didn’t Westminster have a policy of controlling inflation?

They all seemed quite unembarrassed by this contradiction. Somehow they managed to reconcile their support for the strikes with their loyalty to the prime minister and the chancellor. They had squared the circle, at least in their own imaginations.

Which brings us back to Labour values and what they might be. Cathy Jamieson had a stab: fairness justice, opportunity for all. But doesn’t everyone want that these days, whether they define themselves as political or not?

We are often told that opponents cannot match the first minister’s eloquence and intelligence. But Labour’s failure is not because of a deficit of talent. It cannot attract talent because of its failures.

Even if Scottish Labour could find a candidate with the rhetorical skills of Barack Obama, the record of John McCain and the looks of Sarah Palin, it would struggle to convince. To borrow again from American politics: It’s the vision thing, stupid.

joan.mcalpine@sunday-times.co.uk

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